Affiliations

TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages International Association.) is a well-established organisation based in the USA. It has a very well regarded academic journal (TESOL Quarterly) which has, over the years, published a number of landmark articles. It also holds an annual Convention.

TESOLANZ is an affiliate of TESOL, but it is a separate organisation and you must join TESOL to become a member.

TESOLCALL IS EVO18 Call for Proposals

IS EVO18 is excited to invite proposals for another round of the Electronic Village Online (EVO), We would love to have inspiring educators present an online session in EVO 2018. Since 2001, the Electronic Village Online (EVO) has functioned as a virtual extension of the Electronic Village (EV), a Special Interest group of TESOL’s CALL Interest Section, and provided free online professional development sessions for language teachers world-wide.

Could you help us develop timely topics and recruit moderators by distributing our Call for Proposals to your list? Go to this link . Proposals may be on any topic relevant to the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. Proposals are due by September 24, 2017. A training session will be held for all moderators and co-moderators from October 22 to November 19, 2017. During this time moderating teams will create the online spaces for their session and finalize their syllabus with the assistance of the EVO Coordination Team. The actual five-week EVO sessions for this season will take place between January 14 and February 18, 2018. Please help us recruit potential moderators by distributing this Call for Proposals to your e-list. Potential moderators will find instructions here on how to create a page for their proposal. Sessions offered in the past can be found here. Important dates: *Due date for proposals: September 24, 2017* *Moderators' Training: Oct. 22 - Nov. 19, 2017* *EVO sessions: January 14 - February 18, 2018.* Click if you’d like to read more about EVO.

Call for New Member of Affiliate Leadership Council

The TESOL Affiliate Leadership Council (ALC) is now accepting expressions of interest. The ALC represents affiliates and works with affiliates and others in TESOL to organize events and address affiliate issues and concerns. If you are interested in having a stronger voice in TESOL affiliate programming, the Council is eager to have you on board! The call for candidates and the application process can be found online. The deadline to submit applications is 30 October. You’re encouraged to pass this message on to previous leaders from your association’s Board of Directors who may be interested in serving on the council.

TESOL Launches New Online Self-Study Courses

TESOL International Association has launched two new online self-study courses, Fundamentals of TESOL and Teaching and Assessing Adult Learners. Each course is designed so that participants can have an individualized professional learning experience set at their own pace. Participants can register at any time and have three months from the time of enrolment to complete the course. Those who successfully complete a course will receive a certificate of completion.Fundamentals of TESOL is designed for current or prospective teachers and administrators who have little or no formal training in English Language Teaching. The first half of the course will be spent learning theories of language, language learning, and teaching. The second half of the course will be spent understanding how classrooms and lessons should function.Teaching and Assessing Adult Learners is designed for current or prospective teachers and administrators on the fundamentals of teaching and assessing adult language learners. Participants will learn the principles of adult education, as well as techniques and methods for teaching language skills, vocabulary, and grammar to adult learners in ESL and EFL contexts. For more information on these courses, please visit www.tesol.org/selfstudy or contact learn@tesol.org.

TEACHING PRONUNCIATION DIFFERENTLY

For anyone interested in new ways of improving the way they teach English pronunciation, the 5 week EVO session 'Teaching Pronunciation Differently' is starting again on 11th January 2016. It is moderated by three experienced teachers, and deals with important aspects of English pronunciation that are rarely covered in courses. For example, every language has a different basic setting for the tongue, jaw, lips, etc and if this setting is taught explicitly, students' accents improve immediately. Other topics include how to teach the Stress & Reduction system from an articulatory perspective and how to teach sounds without just modelling them (i.e not by 'listen and repeat').

EVO (Electronic Village Online) was created by TESOL's Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section. It has been offering free, open online professional development workshops to teachers of English around the world since 2001, whether or not they are TESOL members.

Participants may choose the level of involvement that works for them. Most of the activity is offline, so you can participate when it is convenient for you. Note that sessions carry no academic credit.

To register for 'Teaching Pronunciation Differently' go here and follow the instructions at the bottom of the page.

TESOL NEWS 2015

With the hope of encouraging practitioner–researcher collaboration, the TESOL Research Standing Committee has put out the first ever TESOL 2015 Call for Research Proposals. TESOL plans to award 3 mini-grants for applicants who are currently working on research or would like to start a research project that is aligned with the TESOL Research Agenda. Proposal deadline is Wednesday, 1 July 2015, 11:59 pm U.S. eastern time.

Please share this announcement with as many of your colleagues in the ELT field as you can (inducing your IS listserv). We look forward to seeing your proposal!

TESOL Convention 2007

IATEFL

IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) is also a well-established organisation based in the UK. It also has a well-regarded journal (ELT Journal) and holds an annual conference.

TESOLANZ is an affiliate of IATEFL , but it is a separate organisation and you must join IATEFL to become a member.

As a TESOLANZ member, you can join IATEFL (the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) at the special discounted rate. This entitles you to Basic Membership – you receive the regular magazines (Voices), discounts to conferences and publications etc – the main things that a Basic Membership doesn't include are membership of a Special Interest Group and the book of highlights from the annual Conference). If you would like to take up the Basic Membership, take a look at the information on the IATEFL website http://www.iatefl.org/membership-information/membership-benefits . Forms for TESOLANZ members to use are available from the TESOLANZ Secretary: Email.

IATEFL Conference

The IATEFL Conference and Exhibition is a major international conference which attracts large numbers of language teaching professionals from around the world.TESOLANZ was represented at IATEFL China in 2002 and 2004 by Marty Pilott and in Exeter 2008 by Carol Griffiths. Here is Carol's report.